FALSE & DECEPTIVE
ADVERTISING
What “Jack” shows you
and what you get from Jack!
http://www.lunchblogkc.com/2010_10_01_archive.html
& http://www.babble.com/best-recipes/jack-in-the-box-free-tacos-on-1116/
*Special thanks to "Google Images", "wikipedia.com", "Mentalfloss.com", "Adweek",
and "USNews & World Report"
*Special thanks to "Google Images", "wikipedia.com", "Mentalfloss.com", "Adweek",
and "USNews & World Report"
BLOG POST
by Felicity Blaze
Noodleman
Los Angeles, CA
11. 1.13
While trying to decide upon a topic for this week’s article
I was once again at my favorite Jack In The Box having breakfast. Generally speaking, I like their food – it usually
looks as good as pictured in their menu, love their coffee but there is one
thing about this restaurant franchise which annoys me to no end. Their Taco’s!
Just to explain in case there isn’t a “Jack” in your town,
they make their version of something called a “Taco” and it’s an insult to
Mexican cooking everywhere! It’s like no other Taco I’ve ever seen
before. Their picture looks like the
traditional Taco, but in fact it is something they have deep fried, encrusted
in some kind of corn tortilla, with what appears to contain some kind of animal
food inside. I think they’re awful and
have declared them uneatable. These
really look nothing like the photo on their menu board. I feel this is a classic case of false
advertising.
Jack In The Box has been serving their version of this “Taco”
for years so it would appear that I’m in the minority of Taco connoisseurs and at
the price of 2 for .99 cents “Jack” has cornered the market. Sometimes they even give them away – free when
you purchase one of their specials. I
have a friend who confessed that she once ate six of them and I exclaimed, “how
could you – they’re awful”! That’s when
I decided upon this week’s topic. No
it’s not about Taco’s; we’re writing about “False Advertising”.
The
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decided on Wednesday to uphold a previous
Administrative Law Judge ruling that POM Wonderful made false claims on its
supplement and food products.
After initially suing the
pomegranate-based product company in
September 2010, the
Commission denied the appeal filed by POM and maintained in a 5-0 ruling that
POM marketers made deceptive and false advertising claims in 36 of their
advertisements and promotional materials. The recent decision actually goes
beyond the
initial ruling which
found only 19 deceptive or false claims.
Most of us feel the days of the “Snake Oil Salesman” have long since past and we are safe from false claims made by advertisers today. I mean with all the Federal agencies’ which regulate so many products from food and beverages to well, you name it, and that’s not including all of the “watch dog agencies’” in society these days.
For some time now the “Tonight Show” on NBC runs a funny bit
about misleading advertising their writers have dug up and which viewers have
sent in. In most cases these ads are
from small newspapers and are usually typographical errors which are amusing
but some are truly false and misleading.
Although their host Jay Leno and Johnny Carson who preceded Jay
capitalizes on the humor created by these mistakes; viewers become conscious of
the reality in deceptive advertising today.
“Consumer Reports” is a publication which has been around
for many years and rates all types of products from automobiles to any and
every thing making their picks for best and rating all the others they’ve
tested. “Underwriters Laboratory’s” is
another organization which actually tests products for reliability giving their
seal of approval for products meeting their standards. “Good House Keeping” is a similar organization testing
products in today’s market place. Just one more thing - "Google" the product just to see what review others have given the product
With all of the testing and scrutiny by independent
organizations and the Government there are still products making false claims
and engaging in deceptive advertising.
How many times have we heard about products being recalled and law suits
pursued against manufactures who have failed to meet their industry standards
and the Government and public’s expectations.
The old expression, “buyers beware” is still a must in today’s world!
FTC acts on IPR’s Complaint about Your
Baby Can Read’s Deceptive Advertising
Posted
on September
12, 2012 by Angela
Campbell
On
August 28, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission responded to IPR’s Request
for Investigation by filing a complaint against
the makers of Your Baby Can Read! (“YBCR”). YBCR is a set of DVDs,
books, and flashcards that retails for approximately $200. It has been
advertised widely on television and the internet for several years.
http://instituteforpublicrepresentation.org/2012/09/12/ftc-acts-on-iprs-complaint-about-your-baby-can-reads-deceptive-advertising/
If we had to pick an industry where deceptive advertising still flourishes today it would be those companies producing personal hygiene products and especially those produced for women. They make all sorts of claims and they are so untrue! Everything from improving your love life to helping you succeed in the work place - and the wrinkle creams which some now call "anti-aging serums! They really go to far. That's because it is a well known fact that women will do almost anything - any cream and any pill! Many of these products are never around very long; they earn a profit and will then reemerge under a different name and maker. They are just one step ahead of the law suites!
http://blogs.york.cuny.edu/wp/bigbadadvertisingblog/2011/12/08/false-advertising/
http://dotcommogul.net/advertising/lies-and-scams-truth-in-advertising-case-study-iq-derma/
Oh yes - before we forget; children's advertising is a completely different area all together! They love everything and anything! Especially if there is a cartoon character on the box. Mothers know all too well. Bright colors not only attract Bee's but are a sure fire tactic to attract a child's eyes and attention. Incidentally; they attract larger children as well!
Source: Center for Science in the
Public Interest
Additionally, advertisers attempt
to address children as consumers in their own right and so develop strategies
to build brand awareness and purchasing habits. One advertiser claims this is
not as difficult as it would seem:
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1011/11rp09
We have selected a few articles this week which illustrate
how advertising is deceptive and false. Normally
we don’t begin writing for “Noodleman" without referring to
“Wikipedia.com” and this week is no exception and it is here that we found a
Bonanza of information on the subject.
We then turned to the Advertising Industry’s trade journal, “AdWeek” for
further information on this subject. The
web site “Mental Floss” exposes more false and deceptive companies who have
engaged in deceptive advertisements over the years and finally; we are
featuring an excellent article from “USNews & World Report”.
False Advertising
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
False advertising or deceptive advertising is the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. As advertising has the potential to persuade people into commercial transactions that they might otherwise avoid, many governments around the world use regulations to control false, deceptive or misleading advertising. "Truth" refers to essentially the same concept, that customers have the right to know what they are buying, and that all necessary information should be on the label.
False advertising, in the
most blatant of contexts, is illegal in most countries. However, advertisers
still find ways to deceive consumers in ways that are legal, or technically
illegal but unenforceable.
Hidden fees and surcharges
Service providers often
tack on the fees and surcharges that are not disclosed to the customer in the
advertised price. One of the most common is for activation of services such as mobile phones, but is also common in broadband, telephony, gym memberships, and air travel. In most
cases, the fees are hidden in fine print, though in a few cases
they are so confused and obfuscated by ambiguous terminology that they are
essentially undisclosed. Hidden fees are frequently used in airline and air
travel advertising. In the case of motor
vehicles, hidden charges may include taxes, registration fees, freight,
pre-delivery inspection (PDI), licenses, insurance or other costs associated
with getting a vehicle on the road. Airlines and car
manufacturers hire firms that disadvantage customers through:
- Unfair contract terms, notably with respect to
consumer compensation.
- Use customer data for purposes other than they were
obtained for.
- Apply unfair fees, charges and penalties on
transactions.
- Place artificial restrictions on the time period
during which customers can submit claims.
For delivered items in the
US, the amount of shipping
and handling
fees is typically not disclosed (although the fact that there will be such charges
is disclosed). Advertisers will often claim an item costs "only" a
small amount (or is even "free") when, in fact, the shipping charges
enable them to make a profit.
"Going out of business" sales
In many cases, liquidators hired to sell merchandise
from a closing store will actually raise the prices on items that were already
marked-down on clearance. For items already marked
down, this means the liquidator increases the price and then
"discounts" it from there. Also common is for the sale prices at a retail chain's other stores to be lower
than the liquidator's prices at the closing stores. Liquidators typically
refuse to accept returns, so if a customer notices being overcharged, there is
no apparent recourse. This is used by most advertisers trying to prove the
acceptability of their products.
Misuse
of the word "free"
The usual meaning of
"free" is "devoid of cost or obligation". However,
retailers often use the word for something which is merely included in the
overall price. One common example is a "buy one, get one free" sale.
The second item is not "free" under the normal definition, since, to
obtain it, the buyer is obliged to pay the full cost of the first item.
Other deceptive methods
Manipulation of measurement units and standards
Sellers may manipulate standards to mean
something different than their widely understood meaning. One example is with personal computer hard drives. While a megabyte (MB) has always meant 220
(1,048,576) bytes in computer science, disk manufacturers began
using the metric
system
(SI) prefix meaning of 106
(1,000,000) as their hardware standard. By stating the sizes of hard drives in
MB as 1,000,000 bytes instead of 1,048,576 bytes, they overstate capacity by
nearly 5%. With gigabytes (GB) the error increases
to over 7% (1,073,741,824 instead of 1,000,000,000), and nearly 10% for the
larger and increasingly common terabyte (TB). Seagate
Technology
and Western
Digital
were sued in a class-action
suit
for this. Both companies agreed to settle the suit and reimburse customers in
kind, yet they still continue to advertise this way. To help combat this
problem, a number of standards and trade organizations approved standards and
recommendations in 2000 for a new set of binary prefixes, proposed earlier by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), that would refer
unambiguously to powers of 1024. These new units are numerically identical to
the established computer science convention, easing transition. Other operating
systems either continue to use the older computer science convention (Microsoft Windows), or have switched to the
new units (GNU/Linux), which are numerically
identical to the older convention. Thus disk hardware on these systems still
reports the actual capacity, which is lower than advertised.
In another example, in the
US, car engine displacement was changed from US customary units to metric,
during the 1980s, to disguise that they were dramatically downsized. This was
done while most other automotive measurements remained in US customary units.
In a more blatant example, Fretter Appliance stores claimed "I’ll give you five
pounds of coffee if I can’t beat your best deal". While initially they
gave away that quantity, they later redefined them as "Fretter
pounds", which, unsurprisingly, were much lighter than standard pounds.
In an example of standards
manipulation, US car rental agencies routinely refer to cars as one class
larger than they are, as defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency standards. For example,
they would refer to a car as "full-sized", while the EPA would call
the same car "mid-sized".
Fillers and oversized packaging
Some products are sold with
fillers, which increase the legal
weight of the product with something that costs the producer very little
compared to what the consumer thinks that he or she is buying. Food is an
example of this, where meat is injected with broth or even brine (up to 15%), or TV dinners are filled with gravy or other sauce instead
of meat. Malt and cocoa butter have been used as filler
in peanut
butter.
Manipulation of terms
Listerine advertisement, 1932. The
FTC found that the claim of these advertisements, reduced likelihood of
catching cold, was false.
Many terms do have some
meaning, but the specific extent is not legally defined, leading to their
abuse. A frequent example (until the term gained a legal definition) was "organic" food.
"Light" food also is an even more common manipulation. The term has
been variously used to mean low in calories, sugars, carbohydrates, salt, texture, thickness (viscosity), or even light in color. Unlike the term
"Organic", the term "Natural" has no legal definition when
describing food products. Labels such as "All-Natural" are frequently
used but are essentially meaningless. Tobacco companies, for many years, used
terms like "low tar", "light", "ultra-light",
"mild" or "natural" in order to imply that products with
such labels had less detrimental
effects on health,
but in recent years it was proved that those terms were considered misleading.
Another example is the United
Egg Producers'
"Animal Care Certified" logo on egg cartons which misled consumers by
conveying a higher level of animal care than was actually the
case. The Better
Business Bureau
found the logo to be deceptive and the original logo can no longer be used.
Incomplete comparison
"Better" means
one item is superior to another in some way, while "best" means it is
superior to all others in some way. However, advertisers frequently fail to
list the way in each they are being compared (price, size, quality, etc.) and,
in the case of "better", to what they are comparing (a competitor's
product, an earlier version of their own product, or nothing at all). So,
without defining how they are using the terms "better" or
"best", the terms become meaningless. An ad which claims "Our
cold medicine is better" could be just saying it is an improvement over
taking nothing at all.
Inconsistent comparison
In an inconsistent
comparison,
an item is compared with many others, but only compared with each on the
attributes where it wins, leaving the false impression that it is the best of
all products, in all ways. One variation on this theme is web sites which also
list some competitor prices for any given search, but do not list those
competitors which beat their price (or the web site might compare their own
sale prices with the regular prices offered by their competitors).
Misleading illustrations
One common example is that
of serving
suggestion
pictures on food product boxes, which show additional ingredients beyond those
included in the package. Although the "serving suggestion" disclaimer
is a legal requirement of an illustration which includes items not included in
the purchase, if a customer fails to notice or understand this caption, they
may incorrectly assume that all depicted items are included.
Another example is
advertised images of hamburgers, which may show the items
to be larger than they really are. Often every ingredient is visible from the
side being depicted in the advertisement, while in actuality they would be much
less visible. Products which are sold unassembled or unfinished may also have a
picture of the finished product, without a corresponding picture of what the
customer is actually buying.
False coloring
When used to make people
think food is riper, fresher, or otherwise healthier than it really is, food coloring can be a form of
deception. When combined with added sugar or corn syrup, bright colors give the
subconscious impression of healthy, ripe fruit, full of antioxidants and phytochemicals. One variation is
packaging which obscures the true color of the foods contained within, such as
red mesh bags containing yellow oranges or grapefruit, which then appear to be
a ripe orange or red. Regularly stirring hamburger on sale at a deli can also make
the meat on the surface stay red, implying that it is fresh, while it would
quickly oxidize and brown, showing its true age, if left unstirred.
Angel dusting
Angel dusting is a process where an
ingredient which would be beneficial, in a reasonable quantity, is instead
added in an insignificant quantity which will have no consumer benefit, so they
can make the claim that it contains that ingredient, and mislead the consumer
into expecting that they will gain the benefit. For example, a cereal may claim
it contains "12 essential vitamins and minerals," but the amounts of
each may be only 1% or less of the Reference
Daily Intake,
providing virtually no benefit to nutrition.
Bait-and-switch
Bait-and-switch is a technique where
advertisers advertise an item which is unavailable when the consumer arrives at
the store, who is then sold a similar product at higher price. Bait-and-switch
is legal in the United States, provided that ads state that there is a limited
supply (sometimes they must list the quantity) and that no rain checks will be offered.
Guarantee without a remedy specified
If a company does not say
what they will do if the product fails to meet expectations, then they are free
to do very little. This is due to a legal
technicality
that states that a contract cannot be enforced unless
it provides a basis not only for determining a breach but also for giving a
remedy in the event of a breach.
"No risk"
Advertisers frequently
claim there is no risk to trying their product, when clearly there is. For
example, they may charge the customer's credit card for the product, offering a
full refund if not satisfied. However, the risks of such an offer are numerous.
Customers may not get the product at all, they may be billed for things they
did not want, they may need to call the company to authorize a return and be
unable to do so, they may not be refunded the shipping and handling costs, or
they may be responsible for the return shipping.
Acceptance by default
This refers to a contract
or agreement where no response is interpreted as a positive response in favor
of the business. An example of this is where a customer must explicitly "opt-out"
of a particular feature or service, or be charged for that feature or service.
Another example is where a subscription automatically renews unless the
customer explicitly requests it to stop. This is even conducted when the
customer may have specified a specific length of subscription up front, that is
then exceeded and renewed without notification to the customer.
Undisclosed dishonest business practices
Banks, for example, will
sometimes reorder charges against an account to maximize the number of
overdrafts. The bank processes the largest charge occurs first, causing the
account to be overdrawn, so that all subsequent smaller charges also overdraft,
resulting in multiple overdraft fees, even if, under the original order, only
one overdraft would have occurred. in 2011, several banks,
including Bank
of America, JPMorgan Chase, TD
Bank
and Citizens
Financial Group
paid hundreds of millions in settlements over the practice. Similarly, where a
sequence of transactions includes both deposits and withdrawals, a bank may
sequence the transactions so that the withdrawals are processed before the
deposits, to create an overdraft.
"wikipedia.com"
6 Cases of Shamelessly False Advertising
Kristen Steagall
filed under: greatest-hits
http://mentalfloss.com/article/20481/6-cases-shamelessly-false-advertising#ixzz2j2YkGPN9
Sometimes false advertising is easy to spot. Statements like "Lose 20 pounds in 5 days" or "Make $1 million a month while sitting at home" seem to choke on their own incredulity, but sometimes marketers employ a little more finesse to bamboozle you. Here are six examples of shamelessly false advertising campaigns that weren't just implicitly misleading—they were blatant lies.
1. Listerine as a Cure-All
Listerine was the first over-the-counter
mouthwash sold in the United States in 1914 and by 1921 it was already falsely
marketing its product. Declaring itself a cure-all for common cold ailments
like sore throats and coughs, a dandruff preventative, an anti-shave tonic, and
a safe way to protect yourself from cuts, bruises, wounds, and stings,
Listerine was slapped with numerous false advertisement lawsuits. In 1975, the
Federal Trade Commission ordered the company to spend $10 million in corrective
advertising, seeing as their product was no more effective in treating colds
than gargling warm water. Even then, the mouthwash giant didn't really learn their
lesson. In 2005, the company was slapped with another lawsuit. This time
because Listerine claimed it was as "effective as floss" after rigging clinical trials.
2. Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound (Great
for boozy housewives!)
3. Crystal Clear Amoco Gasoline: Good, Clean
Fun
4. Dr. Koch's Cure All
5. Airborne Gets a Flunking Grade
6. The Trick Wedding straight from Mickey
Blue Eyes
We know this one isn't a product, but the
story was so good we had to include it. In September 1990, a group of drug
crime suspects in Corunna, Michigan, received an invitation to a wedding from a
well"“known drug dealer in the area. Attendees were asked to check their
guns at the entrance, apparently a common occurrence at these events. As part
of a five-month undercover investigation, the police staged and advertised a
wedding on a Friday night, figuring it was easier to make drug suspects come to
them than to round them up. The groom was an undercover investigator, the bride
a Flint police officer, and the bride's father (and reputed crime boss) was the
police chief. That evening, after the vows, the toasts, and the dancing, the
band, called SPOC, or COPS spelled backward, played "Fought the Law,"
setting off the cue for the evening's real agenda. All the police officers
were then asked to stand, and those who remained seated were arrested. A dozen
suspects were booked and, by Saturday afternoon, 16 were in custody.
Portions of this story were excerpted from Forbidden
Knowledge, which is available from our
store.
"Mentalfloss.com"
"Adweek"
Do Ad Messages Have a
Credibility Problem?
'Advertising
today is a truth-free zone,' Baskin tells ASRC By Katy Bachman
Noted critic of marketing Jonathan
Salem Baskin will talk about how advertising is losing its credibility to
anyone who will listen to him, he says, including a room full of marketing and
advertising attorneys.
While that might seem like a
disconnect, Baskin and the advertising lawyers he addressed Tuesday at the
Advertising Self-Regulatory Council’s conference in New York share a similar
mission: to bring truth and accuracy in advertising.
“It’s not just a compliance issue,”
says Baskin, an author of six books, including Branding Only Works on Cattle
and Tell the Truth: Honesty is Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool. “As the folks
who care about accuracy and are tasked with substantiating claims, you have a
role to play.”
The trouble with today’s ads is that
they don’t make the ad useful for consumers by providing them with information
they need about the product.
“We slice and dice the truth, without
necessarily communicating the rest of the truth. We’ve also embellished it.
Sometimes we ignore it completely,” Baskin said. “Advertising today is a
truth-free zone.”
As a result no one should be surprised,
Baskin explained, that a recent Nielsen study found that half of the public
doesn’t believe advertising messages.
So what’s a good ad? Baskin offered
several examples.
First, it should point out a functional
benefit. As a positive example, Baskin brought up a Tum's ad from a few years
ago showing a guy trying to eat a chicken wing, but the food kept slapping his
face. “Is your food fighting you?” the ad asked. The ad got right to the point,
which Baskin appreciates.
“Tum’s is not a lifestyle choice,”
Baskin noted.
Ads should also seek more affirmation
from third parties, like Clorox did for its “Green Works” product line, which
partnered for the launch with the Sierra Club.
“I don’t know why we don’t do this on
everything we sell to the public,” Baskin said. Why, for example, didn’t Dawn
dishwashing liquid seek a partner for its ads showing oil-soiled ducks being
washed with it? Why doesn’t Chipotle have a third party verify its steroid-free
beef claims?
Ads should inform and set expectations.
24 Fitness in Los Angeles decided to come clean about gym memberships, telling
consumers that joining a gym won’t make you look great automatically; it also
takes diet and exercise.
Perhaps, Baskin suggested, ad creatives
are focused on the wrong goal.
“Ads aren’t supposed to win awards. You
aren’t supposed to like them. They are not entertainment. Likability has no
correlation to brand and sales success. We have to make them meaningful,
relevant and useful,” Baskin said.
Tell that to any creative director, and
they'll give you an earful of counter-arguments to Baskin's last point.
Noted critic of marketing Jonathan
Salem Baskin will talk about how advertising is losing its credibility to
anyone who will listen to him, he says, including a room full of…
October 1, 2013, 10:38 AM EDT
"Adweek"
"USNews & World Report"
The
Truth About
False and Deceptive Advertising
How to keep ads from
getting the best of you (and your wallet)
By Sienna Kossman
July 22, 2013
Whether on the television, radio or city bus,
consumers face a barrage of advertisements throughout the day. Amidst the
enticing slogans and images, it can be hard to tell which products and services
are really worth the hype – and which could lead to shopper's remorse.
Before you dial that 800 number or checkout your
online shopping cart, consumer protection experts advise taking a moment to
educate yourself about what exactly you are (or are not) buying. There's more
to advertising than you might think, and understanding exactly how advertisers
attract consumers can alert you to potential deceit.
How advertisers draw you in. Advertising is a combination of marketing and
science, or neuromarketing, according to Martin Lindstrom, author of the New
York Times best-seller "Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy,"
which details his study of how ads affect consumers. Advertisements operate on
two tracks: the conscious, using information you can read and understand, and,
more commonly, the subconscious, using information and techniques that you are
not clearly aware of. "Seventy-five percent of everything you and I do
every day takes place in our subconscious mind," Lindstrom says. "In
my opinion, advertising industries are doing pretty well in terms of drawing us
in. Most of us think we are deeply rational but we are really not."
Subconscious advertisement techniques can
include making soda poured over ice in a glass have a high amount of bubbles or
increasing the noise of a steak sizzling on a grill. "It triggers
our craving instinct," Lindstrom says. "It's the same spot in your
brain that's activated when you are gambling, hungry for chocolate or
jogging."
Even if consumers aren't giving an advertisement
100 percent of their attention, that doesn't mean the ad's message doesn't get through.
"For example, most people don't watch TV commercials anymore, [they]
listen to them," Lindstrom says. "Because you are not directly
focused on the screen, your critical senses are dialed down and you are much
more affected by the messages because you let everything come on board."
Another common subconscious advertising
technique is creating a sense of urgency. "The ads that are getting the
most attention and are most successful are the ones that call consumers to
quick action," says Brent Brien, the American Consumer Protection Group's
senior vice president of enforcement. "When people feel there is a sense
of urgency, they don't process or scrutinize information correctly."
Advertisers also reap benefits by igniting fear
in consumers. "We are hardwired to override any other behavior when fear
comes into the equation," Lindstrom says. Sending an audience the right
message at the right time, also called contextual advertising, helps create
consumer fear. For example, a home insurance company could purchase printed ad
space near a story about wildfires. "You may think that it is pure
coincidence, but it's not," Lindstrom says. The variety of mediums
advertisers use can make contextual messages more advanced, as companies begin
to feed off consumers' social media profiles and Internet activity.
What to watch for. There are three general types of companies that engage in
deceptive advertising practices, according to Brien. "'Fraud-by-night
companies are generally just outright frauds and are gone in a month or two
after they take what they can," Brien says. "We believe those
companies are the most harmful to consumers and the marketplace. There are also
companies that have been around for a little while and aren't really widely
known, but engage in massively deceptive behavior and until government entities
take notice, they can operate like that for years. The third type is made up of
larger companies practicing hidden deceptive behavior where consumers generally
can't file litigation action themselves because they don't have the resources
to uncover the deception."
Regardless of what kind of company produces it,
an ad that claims its product or service will make something overly simple or
cause the consumer to quickly build wealth could be a "tip off to a rip
off," according to Mary Engle, head of the Federal Trade Commission's
Advertising Practices Division. "In areas like weight loss and exercise,
consumers should be suspicious of any claim that says fast or easy," Engle
says. "The company may have a small study or rely on some science, but the
claims are so greatly exaggerated beyond what the product can actually
do."
Consumers should also be wary of advertised
financial services that promise to quickly reduce financial burdens such as a
mortgage or other debt. "Most of the problems we see there are that they
are just false rip-offs, and all they want to do is get your financial
information," Engle says. Also pay close attention to testimonials from
people who have had extraordinary results. "Is that really representative
of what consumers will get or is this a one-in-a-million example?" Engle
says.
"Advertising shouldn't be deceptive and if
[ads] use disclosures, they have to be clear and prominent," Engle says.
"And what that means is that if it is on the screen or presented in audio,
it needs to be big and clear enough so that a consumer will notice and have
time to read and comprehend it. If it's just a blur on the screen, they are
pretty much saying 'but not really' in the fine print."
Lastly, pay attention to advertised money-back
guarantees and the claims they make. "We settled a case last year with
this product called the Ab Circle Pro, an abdominal exercise device,"
Engle says. "For three minutes a day, you were supposed to work out with
this product and get nice abs. Their claim was 'Lose 10 pounds in two weeks or
your money back.' To us, they were claiming that users were going to lose 10
pounds in two weeks." Companies willing to lie about products may also be
more likely to lie about money-back guarantees, so take caution, she adds.
How you can take action. Experts recommend researching the items that
catch your eye before making any investments to protect yourself from
deception. Be sure to turn to trusted and reliable organizations. "You can
go online and look at product reviews, but be careful because we have seen that
some companies will put up websites that appear to be independent
reviews," Engle says. "You can get a sense for the place or the
product, but you should be skeptical of the ones that are the most or least
glowing." The Federal Trade Commission has a host of readily
available consumer-protection information about what to look for in ads based
on past cases and general reports.
Consumers who feel they have been deceived by an
advertised product or service have several ways to help right the wrong.
Individuals can complain to the FTC either through an online complaint form or
by calling the organization directly. Additionally, they should complain to the
Better Business Bureau, "and complain to the company, which should
actually be the first step because legitimate companies are going to respond to
consumer complaints, while most frauds will not," Engle says.
Many industry-specific products and services are regulated outside
the FTC, so if a consumer is interested in making sure others are not scammed
in the future, Brien suggests going to the designated regulating agency, such
as the Food and Drug Administration or the Department of Transportation. State
attorney generals will enforce Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices regulatory
proposals, although the extent may vary among states.
Engle's final piece of advice? "Look for advice from reliable
organizations, do business with companies you know and trust, and complain if
you don't get what is offered."
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2013/07/22/the-truth-about-false-and-deceptive-advertising
"USNews & World Report"
Now that we are aware of all the unscrupulous tactics used
by some companies and advertisers trying to sell us their products, hopefully we may avoid an
unpleasant experience in the future.
With more outlets for advertising today than ever before the Internet
has emerged as the most likely source for deceptive advertising. With the webs growing engagement in the world
of advertising we are seeing more new and innovative avenues used by
manufactures and companies getting our attention. Everything from “Pop-Ups” to emails and now
even “EBAY”, they’re all spending big Dollars to get our attention and sell –
sell – sell!
Maybe in the end, "Jack In The Box" is teaching us a life lesson with their unsavory Taco's. Be careful of everything you buy in life. Every thing from your Home purchase, Cars, Insurances and everything else in between and avoid those products and services which seem to good to be true. Even the politicians we vote for! Like the vintage children's toy by the same name - what pops out of the pretty box painted with all the bright colors as we have turned the crank playing that little melody may scare us to death!
Maybe in the end, "Jack In The Box" is teaching us a life lesson with their unsavory Taco's. Be careful of everything you buy in life. Every thing from your Home purchase, Cars, Insurances and everything else in between and avoid those products and services which seem to good to be true. Even the politicians we vote for! Like the vintage children's toy by the same name - what pops out of the pretty box painted with all the bright colors as we have turned the crank playing that little melody may scare us to death!
Here at “Noodleman” every reader is safe from the
advertising which constantly bombards us every second of the waking day! We feel relieved that our publication is an
“Ad free” zone and safe for all to read.
This has been Felicity Blaze Noodleman writing for the Noodleman Group.
A
theory as to the origin of the jack-in-the-box is that it comes from the 13th
century English prelate Sir John Schorne, who is often pictured holding
a boot with
a devil in it. According to folklore, he once cast the devil into a
boot to protect the village of North Marston inBuckinghamshire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack-in-the-box
This week we're launching a new feature on "Noodleman" to assist our readers with further reading on our subject of the week!
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* “The Noodleman Group” is pleased to announce that we are now carrying a link to the “USA Today” news site.We installed the “widget/gadget” August 20, and it will be carried as a regular feature on our site.Now you can read“Noodleman” and then check in to “USA Today” for all the up to date News, Weather, Sports and more!Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of our site and hit the “USA Today” hyperlinks.Enjoy!
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